Making public procurements more climate-friendly and circular requires data. Measuring and monitoring public procurement is vital for organizations to become more data-driven in their work. In this sub-project we aim to raise the quality, consistency, and availability of carbon footprint data for public procurements.
Challenges due to lack of data
The greatest change facing humanity today is most likely climate change. In the Nordic nations, public procurement accounts for roughly 16% of the GDP; as a result, it must actively role in resolving the issue. Making progressive decisions is unfortunately made more difficult by the lack of data or knowledge on how public consumption affects the climate.
Public procurement is increasingly being used to implement political goals, often related to sustainability. A prioritized goal at present is reducing the climate emissions caused by our consumption of goods and services.
For contracting authorities, taking climate aspects into account when procuring requires effort and can increase costs. They need data to be able to select which procurements, products, and suppliers can give the most effective reduction of climate footprint. At present relevant, comparable climate data which can be used in public procurements is not readily available.
The projects aim to ease the use of relevant climate data in procurement activities by harmonizing
- How procurers request climate data in procurement documents
- How suppliers calculate the climate footprint data for their products and services
- How the climate data is made available to procurers
Report from the expert group
An expert group from Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark mapped the state of the art in these nations as well as relevant international activities during the project's initial period. The major findings were that a Nordic perspective was pertinent and that there was a critical need for data harmonisation regarding carbon footprints.
The project has published the report: "Climate Accounting in Public Procurement" which analyses the needs for Contracting Authorities and the current status in the Nordic countries as a basis for planning actions to better the availability of product-related climate data.
As part of this work, the project has initiated category-specific climate measuring pilots which will test implementations in concrete procurements. We will be focusing on Food (DK), Furniture (NO), ICT (FI), and Construction (SE).
Pilot projects in the next phase
The project's next phase will set up pilot projects where contracting authorities, vendors, and data management suppliers can work together to integrate standardized data on carbon footprint into procurement procedures and thereby lessen the climate emissions associated with public procurement.
Lastly, the project will publish a report at the end of the project to share the experiences of climate measuring in public procurement contracts.